Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just a few minutes to midnight, so we can launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. With certain exceptions, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note:  Any question or comment received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. (I've been getting an increasing number of people trying to post after these are closed, so will have to draw a harder line than before.) If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.1 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. 

The image? I field a lot of questions about my books these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. The book above on the left was my eighteenth published book, and it happened via a chain of accidents that still has me fielding baffled questions. Here's what happened. 

My first book on geomancy, the fourth book I published, was released by a certain rather clueless publisher. I warned the marketing people there that they needed to make sure that their sales staff didn't get confused and think that it was a book on Wiccan feng-shui. Sure enough, their sales staff got confused and marketed it to all the little witch bookstores that thrived in those days as a book on Wiccan feng-shui. Once they got their copies and found out that it was a book on a somewhat fussy Renaissance method of divination, of course, they shipped their copies back to the publisher with irate letters; as a result, Earth Divination, Earth Magic became the first book of mine to go out of print.

Fast forward to 2008. Hot on the heels of the success of The Druidry Handbook and The Druid Magic Handbook, I tried to place Earth Divination, Earth Magic with Weiser. They weren't interested in a reprint but said they'd be happy with a new book on the same subject. So I wrote them a new book that covered exactly the same ground as Earth Divination, Earth Magic, and they snapped it up. Much later, Aeon Books picked up Earth Divination, Earth Magic and brought out a new edition. And that, my children, is why I have two books on geomancy from two different publishers covering exactly the same material, in head to head competition with each other. Most prolific authors end up with some such bizarrerie in their backlist sooner or later...

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I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here. 

 

I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***

Comments

Divination and Decline

[(Anonymous)]

Following up on other threads here, you mentioned on frugal friday, astrology as a good cottage industry. What about divination in general? I have divined for myself since I was a teenager, but rarely for others.

Sometimes here and there, for family and friends, but not at all for strangers. What are your thoughts on putting out the wizarding sandwich board for offering divination services in a time of decline?

I suppose I need to get some more practice with diving for others first...

...my wife used to own a restaurant, and even before she owned it, they always had different readers available one or two nights a week. (It was a bohemian affair.) Anyway, she always mentioned the leeches that would come out and get their claws into certain readers. So I know that is a possibility with this, attracting the kind of person who always needs a reading about the drama in their life.

For myself, I always have looked at divination as a key to self revelation, so my interest hasn't ever really been to give readings to others. But it might be useful down the road.

Thanks as ever, and happy magic monday to all.

Justin Patrick Moore

Re: Divination and Decline

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, that's also an option. It helps if it's a well-known system of divination, such as tarot, palmistry, or numerology.

2) Oh, granted. Problem clients are a constant risk for any professional occultist; Cat Yronwode has an entire set of lessons on them in her hoodoo course. You can get rid of them fairly readily if you figure out what they want and refuse to give it to them. Unethical diviners do the same thing by asking them to pay for special services that feed their drama, at wildly inflated costs. ("Yes, it's possible to break that curse, but it's going to require a series of twenty special rituals that involve complex, exotic ingredients, so those will be $1000 each. Cash, please, in advance.")